Adam Bede

G >> George Eliot >> Adam Bede


Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
would be pleased for her to marry him. For those were times when there
was no rigid demarcation of rank between the farmer and the respectable
artisan, and on the home hearth, as well as in the public house, they
might be seen taking their jug of ale together; the farmer having
a latent sense of capital, and of weight in parish affairs, which
sustained him under his conspicuous inferiority in conversation. Martin
Poyser was not a frequenter of public houses, but he liked a friendly
chat over his own home-brewed; and though it was pleasant to lay down
the law to a stupid neighbour who had no notion how to make the best
of his farm, it was also an agreeable variety to learn something from
a clever fellow like Adam Bede. Accordingly, for the last three
years--ever since he had superintended the building of the new
barn--Adam had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, especially of
a winter evening, when the whole family, in patriarchal fashion, master
and mistress, children and servants, were assembled in that glorious
kitchen, at well-graduated distances from the blazing fire. And for the
last two years, at least, Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her
uncle say, "Adam Bede may be working for wage now, but he'll be a
master-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair. Mester Burge is
in the right on't to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, if
it's true what they say; the woman as marries him 'ull have a good take,
be't Lady day or Michaelmas," a remark which Mrs. Poyser always followed
up with her cordial assent. "Ah," she would say, "it's all very fine
having a ready-made rich man, but mayhappen he'll be a ready-made fool;
and it's no use filling your pocket full o' money if you've got a hole
in the corner. It'll do you no good to sit in a spring-cart o' your own,
if you've got a soft to drive you: he'll soon turn you over into the
ditch. I allays said I'd never marry a man as had got no brains; for
where's the use of a woman having brains of her own if she's tackled
to a geck as everybody's a-laughing at? She might as well dress herself
fine to sit back'ards on a donkey."

These expressions, though figurative, sufficiently indicated the bent of
Mrs. Poyser's mind with regard to Adam; and though she and her husband
might have viewed the subject differently if Hetty had been a daughter
of their own, it was clear that they would have welcomed the match with
Adam for a penniless niece. For what could Hetty have been but a servant
elsewhere, if her uncle had not taken her in and brought her up as a
domestic help to her aunt, whose health since the birth of Totty had not
been equal to more positive labour than the superintendence of servants
and children? But Hetty had never given Adam any steady encouragement.
Even in the moments when she was most thoroughly conscious of his
superiority to her other admirers, she had never brought herself to
think of accepting him. She liked to feel that this strong, skilful,
keen-eyed man was in her power, and would have been indignant if he had
shown the least sign of slipping from under the yoke of her coquettish
tyranny and attaching himself to the gentle Mary Burge, who would have
been grateful enough for the most trifling notice from him. "Mary Burge,
indeed! Such a sallow-faced girl: if she put on a bit of pink ribbon,
she looked as yellow as a crow-flower and her hair was as straight as a
hank of cotton." And always when Adam stayed away for several weeks from
the Hall Farm, and otherwise made some show of resistance to his passion
as a foolish one, Hetty took care to entice him back into the net by
little airs of meekness and timidity, as if she were in trouble at his
neglect. But as to marrying Adam, that was a very different affair!
There was nothing in the world to tempt her to do that. Her cheeks never
grew a shade deeper when his name was mentioned; she felt no thrill
when she saw him passing along the causeway by the window, or advancing
towards her unexpectedly in the footpath across the meadow; she felt
nothing, when his eyes rested on her, but the cold triumph of knowing
that he loved her and would not care to look at Mary Burge. He could no
more stir in her the emotions that make the sweet intoxication of young
love than the mere picture of a sun can stir the spring sap in the
subtle fibres of the plant. She saw him as he was--a poor man with old
parents to keep, who would not be able, for a long while to come, to
give her even such luxuries as she shared in her uncle's house. And
Hetty's dreams were all of luxuries: to sit in a carpeted parlour, and
always wear white stockings; to have some large beautiful ear-rings,
such as were all the fashion; to have Nottingham lace round the top of
her gown, and something to make her handkerchief smell nice, like
Miss Lydia Donnithorne's when she drew it out at church; and not to be
obliged to get up early or be scolded by anybody. She thought, if Adam
had been rich and could have given her these things, she loved him well
enough to marry him.

But for the last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty--vague,
atmospheric, shaping itself into no self-confessed hopes or prospects,
but producing a pleasant narcotic effect, making her tread the ground
and go about her work in a sort of dream, unconscious of weight or
effort, and showing her all things through a soft, liquid veil, as if
she were living not in this solid world of brick and stone, but in a
beatified world, such as the sun lights up for us in the waters. Hetty
had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of
trouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself at
church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing;
that he was constantly finding reason for calling at the Hall Farm, and
always would contrive to say something for the sake of making her speak
to him and look at him. The poor child no more conceived at present the
idea that the young squire could ever be her lover than a baker's pretty
daughter in the crowd, whom a young emperor distinguishes by an imperial
but admiring smile, conceives that she shall be made empress. But the
baker's daughter goes home and dreams of the handsome young emperor, and
perhaps weighs the flour amiss while she is thinking what a heavenly lot
it must be to have him for a husband. And so, poor Hetty had got a face
and a presence haunting her waking and sleeping dreams; bright, soft
glances had penetrated her, and suffused her life with a strange, happy
languor. The eyes that shed those glances were really not half so
fine as Adam's, which sometimes looked at her with a sad, beseeching
tenderness, but they had found a ready medium in Hetty's little
silly imagination, whereas Adam's could get no entrance through that
atmosphere. For three weeks, at least, her inward life had consisted of
little else than living through in memory the looks and words Arthur had
directed towards her--of little else than recalling the sensations with
which she heard his voice outside the house, and saw him enter, and
became conscious that his eyes were fixed on her, and then became
conscious that a tall figure, looking down on her with eyes that seemed
to touch her, was coming nearer in clothes of beautiful texture with an
odour like that of a flower-garden borne on the evening breeze. Foolish
thoughts! But all this happened, you must remember, nearly sixty years
ago, and Hetty was quite uneducated--a simple farmer's girl, to whom
a gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an Olympian god. Until
to-day, she had never looked farther into the future than to the next
time Captain Donnithorne would come to the Farm, or the next Sunday when
she should see him at church; but now she thought, perhaps he would try
to meet her when she went to the Chase to-morrow--and if he should
speak to her, and walk a little way, when nobody was by! That had never
happened yet; and now her imagination, instead of retracing the past,
was busy fashioning what would happen to-morrow--whereabout in the
Chase she should see him coming towards her, how she should put her new
rose-coloured ribbon on, which he had never seen, and what he would say
to her to make her return his glance--a glance which she would be living
through in her memory, over and over again, all the rest of the day.

In this state of mind, how could Hetty give any feeling to Adam's
troubles, or think much about poor old Thias being drowned? Young souls,
in such pleasant delirium as hers are as unsympathetic as butterflies
sipping nectar; they are isolated from all appeals by a barrier of
dreams--by invisible looks and impalpable arms.

While Hetty's hands were busy packing up the butter, and her head filled
with these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by Mr.
Irwine's side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also certain
indistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his mind while
he was listening to Mr. Irwine's account of Dinah--indistinct, yet
strong enough to make him feel rather conscious when Mr. Irwine suddenly
said, "What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser's dairy, Arthur? Have you
become an amateur of damp quarries and skimming dishes?"

Arthur knew the rector too well to suppose that a clever invention would
be of any use, so he said, with his accustomed frankness, "No, I went to
look at the pretty butter-maker Hetty Sorrel. She's a perfect Hebe; and
if I were an artist, I would paint her. It's amazing what pretty girls
one sees among the farmers' daughters, when the men are such clowns.
That common, round, red face one sees sometimes in the men--all cheek
and no features, like Martin Poyser's--comes out in the women of the
famuly as the most charming phiz imaginable."

"Well, I have no objection to your contemplating Hetty in an artistic
light, but I must not have you feeding her vanity and filling her little
noddle with the notion that she's a great beauty, attractive to fine
gentlemen, or you will spoil her for a poor man's wife--honest Craig's,
for example, whom I have seen bestowing soft glances on her. The little
puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as miserable
as it's a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries a beauty.
Apropos of marrying, I hope our friend Adam will get settled, now the
poor old man's gone. He will only have his mother to keep in future, and
I've a notion that there's a kindness between him and that nice modest
girl, Mary Burge, from something that fell from old Jonathan one day
when I was talking to him. But when I mentioned the subject to Adam he
looked uneasy and turned the conversation. I suppose the love-making
doesn't run smooth, or perhaps Adam hangs back till he's in a better
position. He has independence of spirit enough for two men--rather an
excess of pride, if anything."

"That would be a capital match for Adam. He would slip into old Burge's
shoes and make a fine thing of that building business, I'll answer for
him. I should like to see him well settled in this parish; he would be
ready then to act as my grand-vizier when I wanted one. We could plan
no end of repairs and improvements together. I've never seen the girl,
though, I think--at least I've never looked at her."

"Look at her next Sunday at church--she sits with her father on the
left of the reading-desk. You needn't look quite so much at Hetty Sorrel
then. When I've made up my mind that I can't afford to buy a tempting
dog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to
me and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and
inclination might become unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on my
wisdom there, Arthur, and as an old fellow to whom wisdom had become
cheap, I bestow it upon you."

"Thank you. It may stand me in good stead some day though I don't
know that I have any present use for it. Bless me! How the brook has
overflowed. Suppose we have a canter, now we're at the bottom of the
hill."

That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be merged
any minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped from
Socrates himself in the saddle. The two friends were free from the
necessity of further conversation till they pulled up in the lane behind
Adam's cottage.



Chapter X

Dinah Visits Lisbeth


AT five o'clock Lisbeth came downstairs with a large key in her hand:
it was the key of the chamber where her husband lay dead. Throughout the
day, except in her occasional outbursts of wailing grief, she had been
in incessant movement, performing the initial duties to her dead with
the awe and exactitude that belong to religious rites. She had brought
out her little store of bleached linen, which she had for long years
kept in reserve for this supreme use. It seemed but yesterday--that time
so many midsummers ago, when she had told Thias where this linen lay,
that he might be sure and reach it out for her when SHE died, for she
was the elder of the two. Then there had been the work of cleansing to
the strictest purity every object in the sacred chamber, and of removing
from it every trace of common daily occupation. The small window, which
had hitherto freely let in the frosty moonlight or the warm summer
sunrise on the working man's slumber, must now be darkened with a fair
white sheet, for this was the sleep which is as sacred under the bare
rafters as in ceiled houses. Lisbeth had even mended a long-neglected
and unnoticeable rent in the checkered bit of bed-curtain; for the
moments were few and precious now in which she would be able to do the
smallest office of respect or love for the still corpse, to which in all
her thoughts she attributed some consciousness. Our dead are never dead
to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can
be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their
place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their
presence. And the aged peasant woman most of all believes that her dead
are conscious. Decent burial was what Lisbeth had been thinking of for
herself through years of thrift, with an indistinct expectation that she
should know when she was being carried to the churchyard, followed by
her husband and her sons; and now she felt as if the greatest work of
her life were to be done in seeing that Thias was buried decently before
her--under the white thorn, where once, in a dream, she had thought she
lay in the coffin, yet all the while saw the sunshine above and smelt
the white blossoms that were so thick upon the thorn the Sunday she went
to be churched after Adam was born.

But now she had done everything that could be done to-day in the chamber
of death--had done it all herself, with some aid from her sons in
lifting, for she would let no one be fetched to help her from the
village, not being fond of female neighbours generally; and her
favourite Dolly, the old housekeeper at Mr. Burge's, who had come to
condole with her in the morning as soon as she heard of Thias's death,
was too dim-sighted to be of much use. She had locked the door, and now
held the key in her hand, as she threw herself wearily into a chair
that stood out of its place in the middle of the house floor, where in
ordinary times she would never have consented to sit. The kitchen had
had none of her attention that day; it was soiled with the tread of
muddy shoes and untidy with clothes and other objects out of place. But
what at another time would have been intolerable to Lisbeth's habits
of order and cleanliness seemed to her now just what should be: it was
right that things should look strange and disordered and wretched, now
the old man had come to his end in that sad way; the kitchen ought not
to look as if nothing had happened. Adam, overcome with the agitations
and exertions of the day after his night of hard work, had fallen asleep
on a bench in the workshop; and Seth was in the back kitchen making a
fire of sticks that he might get the kettle to boil, and persuade his
mother to have a cup of tea, an indulgence which she rarely allowed
herself.

There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw herself
into the chair. She looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and
confusion on which the bright afternoon's sun shone dismally; it was
all of a piece with the sad confusion of her mind--that confusion which
belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul
is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast
city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is
the growing or the dying day--not knowing why and whence came this
illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in
the midst of it.

At another time Lisbeth's first thought would have been, "Where is
Adam?" but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in
these hours to that first place in her affections which he had held
six-and-twenty years ago. She had forgotten his faults as we forget the
sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young
husband's kindness and the old man's patience. Her eyes continued
to wander blankly until Seth came in and began to remove some of the
scattered things, and clear the small round deal table that he might set
out his mother's tea upon it.

"What art goin' to do?" she said, rather peevishly.

"I want thee to have a cup of tea, Mother," answered Seth, tenderly.
"It'll do thee good; and I'll put two or three of these things away, and
make the house look more comfortable."

"Comfortable! How canst talk o' ma'in' things comfortable? Let a-be, let
a-be. There's no comfort for me no more," she went on, the tears coming
when she began to speak, "now thy poor feyther's gone, as I'n washed for
and mended, an' got's victual for him for thirty 'ear, an' him allays
so pleased wi' iverything I done for him, an' used to be so handy an' do
the jobs for me when I war ill an' cumbered wi' th' babby, an' made me
the posset an' brought it upstairs as proud as could be, an' carried the
lad as war as heavy as two children for five mile an' ne'er grumbled,
all the way to Warson Wake, 'cause I wanted to go an' see my sister, as
war dead an' gone the very next Christmas as e'er come. An' him to be
drownded in the brook as we passed o'er the day we war married an'
come home together, an' he'd made them lots o' shelves for me to put my
plates an' things on, an' showed 'em me as proud as could be, 'cause he
know'd I should be pleased. An' he war to die an' me not to know, but to
be a-sleepin' i' my bed, as if I caredna nought about it. Eh! An' me to
live to see that! An' us as war young folks once, an' thought we should
do rarely when we war married. Let a-be, lad, let a-be! I wonna ha'
no tay. I carena if I ne'er ate nor drink no more. When one end o' th'
bridge tumbles down, where's th' use o' th' other stannin'? I may's well
die, an' foller my old man. There's no knowin' but he'll want me."

Here Lisbeth broke from words into moans, swaying herself backwards and
forwards on her chair. Seth, always timid in his behaviour towards his
mother, from the sense that he had no influence over her, felt it was
useless to attempt to persuade or soothe her till this passion was past;
so he contented himself with tending the back kitchen fire and folding
up his father's clothes, which had been hanging out to dry since
morning--afraid to move about in the room where his mother was, lest he
should irritate her further.

But after Lisbeth had been rocking herself and moaning for some minutes,
she suddenly paused and said aloud to herself, "I'll go an' see arter
Adam, for I canna think where he's gotten; an' I want him to go upstairs
wi' me afore it's dark, for the minutes to look at the corpse is like
the meltin' snow."

Seth overheard this, and coming into the kitchen again, as his mother
rose from her chair, he said, "Adam's asleep in the workshop, mother.
Thee'dst better not wake him. He was o'erwrought with work and trouble."

"Wake him? Who's a-goin' to wake him? I shanna wake him wi' lookin' at
him. I hanna seen the lad this two hour--I'd welly forgot as he'd e'er
growed up from a babby when's feyther carried him."

Adam was seated on a rough bench, his head supported by his arm, which
rested from the shoulder to the elbow on the long planing-table in
the middle of the workshop. It seemed as if he had sat down for a few
minutes' rest and had fallen asleep without slipping from his first
attitude of sad, fatigued thought. His face, unwashed since yesterday,
looked pallid and clammy; his hair was tossed shaggily about his
forehead, and his closed eyes had the sunken look which follows upon
watching and sorrow. His brow was knit, and his whole face had an
expression of weariness and pain. Gyp was evidently uneasy, for he sat
on his haunches, resting his nose on his master's stretched-out leg, and
dividing the time between licking the hand that hung listlessly down and
glancing with a listening air towards the door. The poor dog was
hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was waiting
impatiently for some change in the scene. It was owing to this feeling
on Gyp's part that, when Lisbeth came into the workshop and advanced
towards Adam as noiselessly as she could, her intention not to awaken
him was immediately defeated; for Gyp's excitement was too great to find
vent in anything short of a sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his
eyes and saw his mother standing before him. It was not very unlike his
dream, for his sleep had been little more than living through again, in
a fevered delirious way, all that had happened since daybreak, and his
mother with her fretful grief was present to him through it all. The
chief difference between the reality and the vision was that in
his dream Hetty was continually coming before him in bodily
presence--strangely mingling herself as an actor in scenes with which
she had nothing to do. She was even by the Willow Brook; she made his
mother angry by coming into the house; and he met her with her smart
clothes quite wet through, as he walked in the rain to Treddleston, to
tell the coroner. But wherever Hetty came, his mother was sure to follow
soon; and when he opened his eyes, it was not at all startling to see
her standing near him.

"Eh, my lad, my lad!" Lisbeth burst out immediately, her wailing impulse
returning, for grief in its freshness feels the need of associating its
loss and its lament with every change of scene and incident, "thee'st
got nobody now but thy old mother to torment thee and be a burden to
thee. Thy poor feyther 'ull ne'er anger thee no more; an' thy mother
may's well go arter him--the sooner the better--for I'm no good to
nobody now. One old coat 'ull do to patch another, but it's good for
nought else. Thee'dst like to ha' a wife to mend thy clothes an' get thy
victual, better nor thy old mother. An' I shall be nought but cumber,
a-sittin' i' th' chimney-corner. (Adam winced and moved uneasily; he
dreaded, of all things, to hear his mother speak of Hetty.) But if
thy feyther had lived, he'd ne'er ha' wanted me to go to make room for
another, for he could no more ha' done wi'out me nor one side o' the
scissars can do wi'out th' other. Eh, we should ha' been both flung away
together, an' then I shouldna ha' seen this day, an' one buryin' 'ud ha'
done for us both."

Here Lisbeth paused, but Adam sat in pained silence--he could not speak
otherwise than tenderly to his mother to-day, but he could not help
being irritated by this plaint. It was not possible for poor Lisbeth to
know how it affected Adam any more than it is possible for a wounded
dog to know how his moans affect the nerves of his master. Like all
complaining women, she complained in the expectation of being soothed,
and when Adam said nothing, she was only prompted to complain more
bitterly.

"I know thee couldst do better wi'out me, for thee couldst go where thee
likedst an' marry them as thee likedst. But I donna want to say thee
nay, let thee bring home who thee wut; I'd ne'er open my lips to find
faut, for when folks is old an' o' no use, they may think theirsens well
off to get the bit an' the sup, though they'n to swallow ill words wi't.
An' if thee'st set thy heart on a lass as'll bring thee nought and waste
all, when thee mightst ha' them as 'ud make a man on thee, I'll say
nought, now thy feyther's dead an' drownded, for I'm no better nor an
old haft when the blade's gone."

Adam, unable to bear this any longer, rose silently from the bench and
walked out of the workshop into the kitchen. But Lisbeth followed him.

"Thee wutna go upstairs an' see thy feyther then? I'n done everythin'
now, an' he'd like thee to go an' look at him, for he war allays so
pleased when thee wast mild to him."

Adam turned round at once and said, "Yes, mother; let us go upstairs.
Come, Seth, let us go together."